The late Steve Jobs was the iconic co-founder of Apple and one of the great CEO’s of his generation. He revolutionized the world of technology with the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes store and the billion-dollar Pixar conglomerate that produced box-office smashes such as Toy Story, Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo. Little noted and discussed, however, is how Jobs, a self identified Zen Buddhist, also helped to spread of the Gospel.
Greg Laurie, Harvest Christian Fellowship pastor recently observed, "Steve Jobs helped pave the way for more people to hear the Gospel. Even as the Romans built a road system and established a common language in all their territories that was used by the Apostles to bring the Gospel to their generation, Jobs did something similar for our generation."
In the months before his death, Jobs began more earnestly contemplating God and the meaning of life. His bestselling biographer Walter Isaacson says Jobs told him in one of his forty-some interviews,
“Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don't. I think it's 50-50 maybe. But ever since I've had cancer, I've been thinking about it more. And I find myself believing a bit more. I kind of—maybe it's because I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn't just all disappear. The wisdom you've accumulated. Somehow it lives on…but sometimes I think it's just like an on-off switch. Click and you're gone and that's why I don't like putting on-off switches on Apple devices.'”
Jobs was baptized a Christian and confirmed in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. He gave up Christianity at age 13 after he saw starving children on the cover of Life magazine and his Sunday school pastor couldn’t answer his question whether God knew what would happen to them. Jobs never went back to church and began to pursue Eastern religions even traveling to India in the 1970’s. He once said, “Different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don’t. It’s the great mystery.”
Dr. Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theology Seminar, writes, "Christians considering the life and death of Steve Jobs will do well to remember once again the power of an individual life.” READ MORE about Mohler’s view that Christians can learn a thing or two from his life.
In 2005, Steve Jobs gave the graduation speech atStanford University discussing "how to live life before you die." His simple yet challenging message are a window into his soul and his struggle of unbelief in the God of the Bible.
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